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Comment by stormbrew | Hacker News Reader

At it’s best it’s a very quintessentially Canadian sort of absurdism, but then you have to define Canadian. That said i think this is no less true of Monty Python which is really a very British kind of absurdism. Weirdly i feel like there’s no really good, singular American equivalent (certainly SNL isn’t it - Canada’s SNL is probably this hour has 22 minutes). Maybe like… In living color or something.

It rarely makes that Canadianyness explicit but then that’s kind of quintessentially Canadian too.

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> Weirdly i feel like there’s no really good, singular American equivalent

What about The Whitest Kids U Know? For some reason they remind me a lot of the Kids in the Hall, and not just because both have "kids" in their names. There's the absurdist humor, but I also think they even physically resemble the other troupe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Whitest_Kids_U%27_Know

Example skit: "Happier And With Your Mouth Open" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwjmUWh-ymo)

Then there is the absolutely fabulous Key & Peele, I can lose hours just watching random sketches on YouTube. But they don't resemble the Kids in the Hall at all.

That's about as close as you can get.

Americans are too earnest to be into absurdist humor.

I do think there's kind of an element of truth to this, though it feels very broad to say so. American absurdism does exist, just maybe not as much on TV? Screwball comedy is very much a thing in film, and occasionally reaches for the same feeling.

Stuff like Airplane! or some of Mel Brooks' stuff or National Lampoons movies, and later the "Scary Movie"/"Teen Movie"/etc. things... but it's like when they go much deeper than an average SNL sketch they almost always go too far and suddenly reach into trying to offend or anger or even disgust (though the new KITH has a bit of that too).

Adult Swim has a lot of American absurdist humour, like Tim and Eric, The Eric Andre Show, Rick and Morty, etc.

WKUK had its moments, but was definitely led by Trevor in a way KITH members could stand on their own. Personally, i felt it dipped a bit too much into contemporary politics (stuff like Bush being in Skull and Bones), which doesn't quite have the shelf life of KITHs high points.

We're a very in-the-moment people, in the US.

I really love WKUK and had been watching their Twitch streams at the time of Trevor's passing. I'm really looking forward to them releasing their Mars movie, as bittersweet as it may be.

> Weirdly i feel like there’s no really good, singular American equivalent…

I recommend checking out The State: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8O9Eo-rlZZc

And now I have tape, all over my face.

One of the subtle cultural differences I notice whenever I cross the border down into the states, is that a lot of the implied humour in some of the absurd things I'd joke about just isn't received like I'd expect. Not even necessarily absurd actually, it could just be something mildly exaggerated for comedic effect in regular situations. Not all the time, but enough that I notice and dial it back depending on where I am.

Maybe something on Adult Swim? ATHF, Space Ghost, Harvey Birdman?

In the US, live action shows seem to be big productions, maybe not as well suited to making things that aren't universally appealing.

I saw a couple of episodes of Dr Steve Brule. Pretty good. And I guess "Too Many Cooks" really deserves some love. It was incredible. I guess this stuff is from Tim and Eric?

Yeah, I've heard their stuff is good, I think I missed the bus slightly on it. It seems, sort of, very out there. I couldn't follow the plot most of the time whenever I tried to watch it.

Now I'm watching old Brad Neely videos, he had some good weird stuff.

> Weirdly i feel like there’s no really good, singular American equivalent

“Portlandia” fit the bill for me.

Edit: if you pull certain sketches from SNL over the last 5-10 years you get a good through-line of American absurdism: David S. Pumpkins, Airport Sushi, Bodega Bathroom come to mind.

Isn’t portlandia more just Portland/pnw then all of America thou?

> Weirdly i feel like there’s no really good, singular American equivalent (certainly SNL isn’t it - Canada’s SNL is probably this hour has 22 minutes).

Given both are Lorne Michaels shows, Portlandia would be it.

Looking forward to the Portlandia reboot in 2041 :)

Lorne Michaels has his hands in everything (including SNL), so that doesn't necessarily mean very much. He's very good at finding talent though. That said, yeah portlandia is pretty close probably, not sure why it didn't occur to me (I guess I was thinking more 90s-contemporary).

Still I think the thing is none of these suggestions really rise to the top of the culture the way KITH does for Canada or Monty Python does for the UK, or the way (as a different but related sort of thing) SNL does for the US.

> certainly SNL isn’t it - Canada’s SNL is probably this hour has 22 minutes

Perhaps SCTV back in the day.

Personally I never got SNL.

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